In the first season of her recording career, from 1974 to 1980, Patti Smith was a raw nerve, blazing behind the microphone on a mission to reinvent rock and roll as a setting for a new kind of feral, literary revolt. She emerged from the first generation of punk rock at CBGB in New York […]
Long before social media, the multimedia performance poet John Giorno, once the toast of New York City’s underground spanning Andy Warhol’s Factory, the punk rock revolution and the Beat Generation, created a free zone of radical poets and socio-political activists available at the end of a phone line — Dial-A-Poem. Beginning in 1969, Giorno offered […]
Sony Music has unearthed rare material from both Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen and has begun sharing the fruits of those labors. First up is a 50th anniversary edition of Smith’s iconic debut, Horses, while a never-before-heard Springsteen tune, “Lonely Night in the Park,” is out now ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Boss’ […]
Patti Smith is transforming her popular Instagram feed into A Book of Days, which will be released Nov. 15 by Penguin. The book includes 365 photos meant to represent a year in Smith’s life of touring, visiting the graves of literary heroes such as Dylan Thomas and Sylvia Plath and hanging out with her kids […]
Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, directors Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie and The Stone Roses’ John Squire have contributed to a new version of Bob Dylan’s iconic 1965 video for “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” which was released today (May 6) in conjunction with an ongoing celebration of Dylan’s 60 years as a Columbia […]
Patti Smith is back from when the world ended in 2012, or the last year she released new music. This morning she dropped her newest recordings as a part of Live at Electric Lady, Spotify and Electric Lady Studios’ new series of live EPs. Smith sweetly surprised us all, nine years after her record Banga. […]
The Greenwich Village of the 1960s was a carnival of music, literature, poetry, coffee houses, free love, fashion and great ethnic food. The neighborhood’s heartbeat was Bleecker Street, where one could hear the soon-to-be-discovered Bob Dylan at The Village Gate, or Joni Mitchell at The Bitter End. 1967 saw the arrival of Village Oldies on […]
Patti Smith and her longtime guitarist Lenny Kaye serenaded early voters with her apropos 1988 song “‘People Have the Power” in a New York City performance early Tuesday morning. With New York City being Smith’s home base, many voters standing in line knew the tunes and joined in on the chorus. A clip of the […]
The 40th Annual John Lennon Tribute, featuring previously unseen and newly recorded performances Jackson Browne, Patti Smith, Natalie Merchant, Taj Mahal, Rosanne Cash, Bettye LaVette and more can be viewed online beginning on the late Beatles’ birthday, Oct. 9 at 7 p.m. ET. It will be shown through Oct. 12 at Midnight and benefits the Theatre […]
Patti Smith, Joan Baez, Michael Stipe, Cyndi Lauper, Stella McCartney, Tony Hawk, and Micah Nelson — along with dozens of artists and activists worldwide — recorded a socially distant version of “People Have the Power” to honor the sixth anniversary of non-profit group Pathway to Paris. The organization, co-founded by Smith’s daughter Jesse Paris Smith and […]